The Foreign Service Journal, January 2003

knows-what in the way of Washington assignments. As I recall, when the establishment of the FCS was proposed, it was envi- sioned as a line and staff organization reporting directly to the secretary of Commerce. At the onset of the first Reagan administration, however, it was made a subordinate element of the International Trade Administration, itself merely a blip of 1,700 employees on the Commerce Department’s 30,000-strong screen. Consequently, the FCS, headed initially by a director general of deputy assistant secretary rank, had little bureaucratic clout within Commerce, and not all that much more within ITA, whose other units were headed by assistant secretaries. Appointing and Recruiting From the outset, I sensed that many divisions of DOC viewed the FCS as the overseas arm of ITA rather than of Commerce as a whole. And it did not make much sense that a unit designated “Trade Development” functioned separately from the FCS within ITA — except that keep- ing these entities distinct provided more opportunities for high-level political appointments. The number of transferees from State, though more than either department expected, was far below the total required to fill all the officer slots Commerce had inher- ited. For the most part, it was decided to keep State FSOs then filling DOC positions in place until their tours were up. Of more concern to career FCS officers was management’s decision to make direct appointments of persons of its choosing to the Senior Foreign Service. These appointments were to the minister-counselor level and nearly all to embassies in Western Europe. The FCS embarked early on a recruiting and exami- nation program, utilizing a format modeled after the Assessment Centers employed by State. Unlike State, however, there was no Foreign Service Written Examination and the writing sample portion of the assessment was not heavily weighted. In fact, I always felt that our headquarters downplayed the importance of good drafting skills in the recruiting process. Perhaps because I had been in the first group of officers from State’s Board of Examiners to use the Assessment Center procedure, I served on or chaired a number of assess- ments, in Paris, London (twice) and Washington (twice). The quality of people we assessed was often astonishing- ly high and, as I had experienced at BEX, I regretted how many we had to turn away. Relations with State One of the most personalized aspects of the creation of the FCS was how officers of Commerce and State would and should relate to one another in overseas mis- sions as one-time subordinates became equals. I suspect that, where both the senior commercial officer and the economic counselor were State, little changed. Otherwise, the big issues were the “reporting to” practice and employee evaluation writing. Although the legisla- tion creating the FCS called for the SCO to report to the ambassador through the DCM, some posts tried to main- tain the status quo ante, with the FCS officer reporting through the economic section and, effectively, to the DCM. Commerce could, of course, have simply returned evaluations not written as the legislation required to bring the issue to the fore. FCS’s attitude, however, was one of sympathy but little action, at least where it would do any good. Maybe that was just facing reality. Persons assigned to headquarters often complained that the mod- est grade levels given their positions when the organiza- tion was created meant that they were always bumping heads with persons of much higher rank when negotiat- ing with other agencies. For their part, senior appointees were said to aspire to ambassadorial appointments and were therefore reluctant to rock the boat at State. It was left to an officer in the field to file a grievance, ultimately successful, to remedy the situation. Despite its obvious implications, some FCS colleagues seemed more shocked than pleased at the action. The grievance pro- F O C U S J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 45 The big issues were the “reporting to” practice and employee evaluation writing. John (Jack) Bligh is a retired Foreign Service Officer. He joined the Foreign Service in 1966, and moved from State to the Department of Commerce with the transfer of the commercial function. Mr. Bligh served in Seoul, San Jose, Monrovia, Duesseldorf, Washington, Barcelona, Madrid, Ottawa, Bonn, Brussels (EU) and Sydney. He wishes to thank the many colleagues — too numerous to name in this short piece — who deserve credit for things mentioned in the text.